Best Friend of the Bride
by bingblot
Summary: A one-shot post-ep to 7x7, "Once Upon a Time in the West." Lanie corners Kate to get the story about the wedding and the honeymoon.


_Disclaimer: Still not mine. I wish obsession with "Castle" could pay my bills, though. _

_Author's Note: A post-ep to 7x7, "Once Upon a Time In the West," where Lanie talks to Kate about the wedding and the honeymoon. And getting into the wedding vows, again, because I couldn't resist trying to write some of Kate's thoughts. Sort of following in my other Wedding-related fics but not really. _

**Best Friend of the Bride**

Lanie Parish had a plan.

She'd coordinated with Alexis so she knew that both Kate and Castle were home at the loft, having gotten back from their impromptu pseudo-honeymoon yesterday, and they'd just finished up with dinner.

Lanie was ready.

She knocked briskly on the door of the loft that was opened after a minute by Castle.

"Hey Lanie," he greeted her.

She ignored his greeting, pushing right past him and heading straight towards Beckett, who gave her a smile tinged with just a hint of tentativeness and apology—_yeah, you better feel sorry_, Lanie thought. Lanie linked her arm with Beckett and then turned, half-pulling Beckett with her. "You, girl, are coming with me."

"Um, okay, where are we going, Lanie?" Beckett asked, stumbling momentarily before she found her footing again.

Lanie paused to give Beckett a chance to grab her coat from the front closet and, while Beckett was shrugging into it, turned to fix Castle with a look.

"I'm kidnapping my _best friend_ _who just got married without telling me_," she informed him, emphasizing the words more for Beckett's benefit than for his. "We'll be at the Old Haunt having a couple drinks," she added. "And Castle, do not even think about showing your face there tonight."

"It's my bar!" he protested.

"And you married her," Lanie retorted, indicating Kate with a wave of her hand. "So she's part owner too now. Anyway, I told Alexis to duct tape you to a chair if you tried to follow us."

Beside her, Beckett laughed and Castle pouted, sending a look of exaggerated betrayal to his daughter, who only gave him an innocent smile.

"Alexis," he mock-threatened. "Don't you dare."

"It'll be fine, Castle," Beckett said. "I did promise to go out with Lanie and tell her everything. I'll be back before you know it."

"But I'll miss you," he pouted.

Beckett laughed again. "You weren't so concerned about missing me when you signed up for all the cool activities at the ranch and sent me off to hog-tying class."

Hog-tying? Lanie turned to raise an eyebrow at Beckett, who shrugged. "Okay, that's another story I've got to hear," Lanie told her as she propelled Beckett out of the loft.

Lanie fixed Kate with a look as soon as they were both in a cab and on their way to the Old Haunt. "Spill, Beckett. I want the story now, want to know every detail about what the wedding was like."

"I'm sorry," Beckett blurted out instead. "I'm so sorry. For not telling you, for not inviting you, for not letting you be there for me."

Oh bother. Lanie felt the last bits of her lingering hurt and annoyance vanishing. "You're making it really hard to stay annoyed at you, Kate," she finally said.

Kate gave a little laugh. "That's good because I don't want you to be annoyed with me. Or with Castle," she added after a brief pause.

"Don't tell me. He's the one that suggested you guys run off and get married with no notice." That almost went without saying. Castle was the impulsive one. He was the one that decided something and then just went ahead and did it. And while Beckett had still agreed to it—Lanie knew her friend too well to think that Beckett hadn't made up her own mind about agreeing—it was still a trademark Castle idea in the first place. Beckett wouldn't have thought to do such a thing.

Kate smiled a little and Lanie saw an almost wistful edge to it in the light from a passing street lamp. "Yeah, it was his idea," she said, her tone fond, "but Lanie, I really think it was something we needed to do."

"Get married without any of your friends even knowing about it?" Lanie interjected.

"No, not that, not really," Beckett corrected. "Just… get married. It—it all happened really fast, Lanie. There just wasn't time. I mean, the boys still had paperwork and stuff to take care of from that last case. You still had work to do, preparing the report on the vic's body. Marcus Lark has boatloads of money so his high-powered lawyers swooped in and started complicating things with really closing the case—"

"I know," Lanie interrupted. "Javi told me all that. But did you really need to get married _that day_? You couldn't even wait the couple days until the weekend so we could be there?"

"Honestly, at the time, it didn't seem like we could and more than that, we didn't want to," Beckett admitted after a moment. "I—I don't really know if I can explain it, Lanie. It's just that after everything that happened, I think we—when we decided to just get married—we didn't want to wait, didn't want to risk anything else coming up, anything else happening. We—we were so close last time," she said quietly, her voice breaking ever so slightly.

Lanie winced, reaching out to take Kate's hand in her own, thinking about that awful day that had gone from so much happiness to so much devastation in the space of a couple minutes. And put like that, remembering how close they had been—everything about Castle disappearing had happened within an hour of the ceremony's scheduled start time; he'd been less than 10 minutes away when the accident had happened. With that, the stark proof of how quickly everything could change, Lanie could understand that, once the decision to get married was made, they wouldn't have wanted to risk waiting even a day, wouldn't have wanted to tempt fate, as it were, by waiting any longer than absolutely necessary. No, she really could not stay annoyed with them.

She remembered what Javi had told her about what Gates had said, being happy for their friends after how much they'd been through—and that was really it. Of course she would have wanted to see Kate get married and of course she was a little upset for all her plans for Kate's wedding to come to nothing but she wasn't important here. All she really wanted was for her friends to be happy and Kate and Castle were happy. "I understand, Kate. Really. And as long as you're happy about it, then I'm happy."

"Oh, Lanie!" Kate leaned forward to throw her arms around Lanie. "Thank you."

"I still want details," Lanie said when Kate drew back. "You have got to tell me _everything_."

"Well, we told Martha and Alexis and I called my dad and we went up to the Hamptons—"

"No, no," Lanie interrupted. "Wait, you told me _why_ you guys decided to get married that day, but how did you reach that decision? I thought you'd decided to wait a little, give it a little time, after everything."

"We had. We said a month, just to allow us to get back to normal, to ourselves. And we were trying, really, and a lot of times, when we were at work and stuff, it seemed like we were but everything—it was just always there, hanging in the background, you know." Kate paused and then began again, "Castle was having trouble sleeping for a couple nights and not because he was writing either. Just… not being able to sleep. And after we got back from that factory, he finally admitted that it was because he'd been worrying about us, about how we would really get past everything, about how he could live with knowing how much he hurt me," she said with a small, rather sad smile curving her lips.

_Point for Writer Boy_, Lanie thought, to be more concerned with how much he'd hurt Kate than needing to know what had happened for his own sake or even for the sake of the story or anything else. But then, whatever else, Castle did love Kate. He might be an overgrown child in some ways and lord knows, there were times Lanie wondered how Beckett put up with him but in spite of all that, Lanie never doubted how much Castle loved Beckett. Lanie _knew_ he loved Beckett, had always known it, so that even at the worst, when Castle had first reappeared, she hadn't been able to believe that Castle had arranged to disappear and then willingly stayed away without a word for months like that. She and Javi had even had a few arguments about it, Javi insisting that the evidence was clear, that he couldn't believe he'd ever called Castle friend, and Lanie had persisted in saying that it didn't matter, even gone so far as to paraphrase what Castle always said, that it didn't matter about the evidence if the story didn't make sense.

"And then Castle said that he'd figured it out, that the way to get past it was just to move on with our lives, to accept that it had happened but not allow it to rob us of any more of our time together, not allow it to get in the way of our wedding any longer. And, well, he was right. I just—we were supposed to have been married already, Lanie. We were _ready_ to be married months ago and then, when everything happened, it was like a major detour but if we kept on letting it stop us from doing what we both knew we wanted, then it wouldn't be just a detour but would actually have gotten us lost, off the track to where we both wanted to go." She paused and then laughed a little, self-consciously. "Listen to me, rambling on in metaphors about detours and tracks. I think I've been living with a writer for too long."

Lanie laughed. "Yeah, your Castle might have been a bad influence on you."

Kate's smile softened, changed. "No," she corrected quietly, "he's been a good influence on me, always."

Lanie suppressed a smile, made a mental note that teasing Castle could wait until some time when Beckett wasn't still in such a honeymoon phase. "So you went up to the Hamptons," Lanie prompted.

"Yeah. Martha and Alexis drove up ahead of us to get things ready and because we needed to go get the marriage license and then I drove us up together—I wasn't going to let him out of my sight until the ceremony started," Kate added with another rather wistful smile.

"Who performed the ceremony?"

"Chief Brady of the Hamptons PD is a friend from that time the guy died in Castle's pool on our first trip up there and he has a friend who's a justice of the peace who agreed to marry us on such short notice."

At that moment, the cab pulled up in front of the Old Haunt and Lanie reached into her purse but was forestalled by Kate who pulled out her own card. "No, Lanie, let me."

"I'm kidnapping you, remember?" Lanie teased.

Beckett laughed. "Consider it part of my making amends."

"Okay," Lanie agreed. "Since drinks should be free anyway."

That settled, they both went into the Old Haunt, smiling at Charlie, the bartender who was on duty.

"Hi, Detective Beckett, Dr. Parish. Mr. Castle already called so you're all set. What do you want to drink?"

Beckett smiled faintly at the mention of Castle having called. _Another point for Writer Boy_, Lanie thought. They all blithely assumed that their drinks would always be on the house at the Old Haunt—and to Castle's credit, it had always been true—but that was because Castle was always part of the group. It wouldn't happen automatically when he weren't around, even if the bartenders all recognized them as being regulars and friends with Castle.

Beckett raised her eyebrows at Lanie and Lanie said, "Beer." She'd been avoiding beer because of its calorie count for months now but so much for that.

"Two of our usual beers, then," Beckett ordered and then joined Lanie at their usual booth, drinks in hand.

Lanie clinked glasses with Beckett. "Seriously, Kate, congratulations."

Her friend smiled a wide beaming smile that showed Lanie more than anything else could have just how happy Kate really was about all this. "Thanks, Lanie."

"I still want the whole story, girlfriend, so spill."

"Well, my dad took the rest of the day off from work and drove up so he gave me away and of course, Martha and Alexis were there."

"What did you wear?"

"A white pantsuit." She paused and then added with a small, almost teary smile, "Martha gave me her mother's earrings so I wore those, again, too. Alexis took pictures; she can send them to you."

Lanie nodded. "Okay, I'll definitely ask to see the pictures. And?"

"And it was just… perfect," Kate said softly. "It was simple and quiet and really intimate and it was perfect."

"What about the vows? Did you use the ones you'd written for before?"

"No, I changed them a little. I… made them shorter. I thought about it and there wasn't that much I needed to say to him. He already knew most of what I planned to say and it just… with how quickly everything came together, it didn't feel like the vows needed to be long either."

"So what did you say?"

Kate smiled and colored, glancing down at the table, as she answered, softly, "I said that I love him and that I want to spend my life in the warmth of his smile and the strength of his embrace."

Lanie felt the prick of tears. Oh, damn. And this was over the secondhand retelling; she couldn't imagine what a mess she would have been if she'd heard it for real. "Damn, girl, you're going to make _me_ cry," she joked a little feebly.

Kate only managed a faint smile as she looked up at Lanie. "That part was new," she explained quietly. "Most of my vows were the same as what I'd planned to say before but that part was new. It... it was what I knew I really needed to say after… what happened." She swallowed and then went on, her voice trembling ever so slightly, her eyes fixed on the table and not even meeting Lanie's eyes, "I missed him _so_ much. And those two things—his smile and his embrace—I think are what really sum up what I love most about him, what I missed the most. The way he smiles at me sometimes… I know I'm not perfect and I'm wounded and broken and still not great at expressing what I feel but when he smiles at me… I _feel_ extraordinary, the way he always says I am, and if he says so, then I start to believe it. When he was gone, when it was hardest, when I wanted to give up, I remembered his smile and the way he always said that what made me extraordinary was that I don't give up. So I didn't."

Lanie blinked rapidly, amazed and touched at this Kate, at her best friend. Oh, she and Kate were close and Kate had talked about her feelings for Castle—and in fairly serious terms—before and God knows, Kate had cried in Lanie's arms over Castle's disappearance often enough too. But even so, Lanie had never ever heard Kate speak like this, so…personally… with such open emotion about what she felt for Castle.

"And then there's the way I feel when he holds me…" Kate paused and then, finally, looked up to meet Lanie's eyes, tears glistening in her own even as she managed a rather shaky smile. "Missing my mother doesn't hurt when he holds me."

"Oh Kate…" Lanie breathed. She put her arm around Kate's shoulder, squeezing in a half-hug. "I'm really, really happy for you, you know that, right?"

"I know, Lanie, and thanks for forgiving us, for understanding."

Lanie managed a grin at Kate, wanting to dispel some of the sadness still lingering in Kate's eyes. "Eh, I've forgiven _you_, Kate, because you're my best friend. I'm still making up my mind whether I'll forgive Castle until you tell me what he said to you. Have to make sure he deserves you, you know."

Kate laughed a little, though her expression was soft. "If it's a contest of whose vows were sweeter, I think he wins so you'll forgive him."

"Well, now I _really_ need to know what he said. Word for word, Beckett," Lanie ordered.

Beckett smiled and ducked her head to look down at the table. "Word for word, Lanie, really?"

"Word for word," Lanie confirmed. "Oh, come on, don't act shy now, girl. If I'd been at the wedding like I was supposed to be, I'd have heard him say it anyway, and you cannot tell me that you don't remember every word he said."

"I remember," Kate said softly. "I'll never forget."

"See, then, what's the problem?" Lanie tilted her glass in Beckett's direction before taking a drink. "Come on, tell me what he said."

Kate's smile turned soft and rather dreamy, in a way that was unusual for her—all _Kate_ and nothing of Detective Beckett to be seen. She kept her eyes fixed absently on her wedding band on her finger, one finger from her other hand caressing it lightly, and Lanie knew her friend was momentarily back in the Hamptons, hearing Castle say these words to her. She spoke softly, slowly.

"The moment we met, my life became extraordinary. You taught me more about myself than I knew there was to learn. You are the joy in my heart."

"I guess he really is a writer," Lanie interjected before she could bite the words back. Kate blinked a little but her soft smile didn't falter and she only went on as if Lanie hadn't spoken.

"You're the last person I want to see every night when I close my eyes. I love you, Katherine Beckett, and the mystery of you is the one I want to spend the rest of my life exploring." Kate's smile deepened a little, an added flush coloring her cheeks, making her suddenly look more beautiful than Lanie had ever seen her look before. (Which was saying something since Kate was always beautiful, to the point that Lanie often joked to Kate that if she didn't like Kate so much, she could almost hate her for being so gorgeous.) And Lanie realized that Kate was thinking of whatever private moment in her and Castle's past that made what he'd said so significant to both of them, beyond just the literal meaning that anyone else would have heard.

"I promise to love you, to be your friend and your partner in crime and life, 'til death do us part, and for the time of our lives."

There was a brief silence and then Kate blinked, seeming to return to the present, and sent a rather shy smile at Lanie. "So, what's the verdict?"

Lanie sniffed and had to blink back some tears. "I think he'll do. I'll tell Javi not to shoot him," she joked rather shakily. "He might deserve you after all." Lanie made a mental note to tell Castle that he'd done well—and to make it doubly clear that if he ever hurt Beckett again, she had scalpels and other surgical knives and she knew how to use them. What—Beckett was still her best friend.

Kate laughed, once again almost glowing with happiness. "He does deserve me. He more than deserves me."

Lanie shook her head a little. "You are head over heels in love so you're biased. So what happened after that?"

"Well, that was basically it. The justice of the peace pronounced us husband and wife." Kate's voice lingered a little over the last words as if savoring them.

"Did your dad cry?"

Kate laughed and then colored. "I… uh… I'm not sure. I wasn't really looking at him at all so I don't know."

Lanie smirked. "You mean you were blind to the rest of the world except for your Castle."

"Yeah, pretty much," Kate admitted, ducking her head a little.

"Did you dance?"

Kate's smile widened. "Oh, Lanie, it was so adorable. He had downloaded our song onto his phone so we did get to dance to our song at the wedding and it was just... It felt like we were the only people in the world and it was just us, dancing to our song, and he hummed along to some of the lyrics and it was… magical."

Magical.

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with Kate Beckett? The Kate Beckett I know doesn't believe in magic."

Kate tilted her head to one side, thoughtfully. "I still don't believe in magic, not the real kind, or the supernatural or in things like zombies and aliens, not like Castle does. But I think when I'm with him, I'm more… open to the possibility that some things can't be fully explained." There was a pause and then Kate shook her head a little, laughing and then taking a drink. "Listen to me. He's turned me into such a sap."

Lanie laughed. "Maybe that's not such a bad thing. And anyway, you're still in the honeymoon period. I think it's allowed. And speaking of honeymoons, how was yours?"

Kate smiled with just a touch of mischief. "It was fun."

"It was fun?" Lanie echoed rather disbelievingly. "Oh, come on now, Kate! You know that's not a good enough answer! I want details, remember? And Kate Beckett honeymooning on a dude ranch? That's the sort of thing that requires a lot of information."

"It was Castle's fault and I couldn't believe it when Gates said she thought it was a good idea."

"But you agreed to stay on an extra four days when the case was closed," Lanie reminded her.

"Yeah, I did." Kate shrugged. "It was… weird, not what I pictured for our honeymoon, but it sort of worked." She smiled. "He was so excited, you know, got so into getting dressed up in costume and buying real pistols and everything."

"I can just imagine," Lanie said dryly.

"He drives me crazy sometimes with how excited he gets when he's like a little kid on a sugar rush but at the same time…" Kate made a small face and laughed. "He makes everything more fun too. And he's kind of adorable when he gets all excited."

Lanie made a face at her friend. "Okay, I sort of didn't need to know that part, but sure, whatever you say. Now, you said something about hog-tying? How did that come in?"

Kate laughed, covering one hand with her face as her shoulders shook. "Oh, that was Castle's idea. When we found out that Whitney might have been having an affair with one of the married ranch hands, he decided that we needed to split up to go talk to the ranch hands and find out which one of them it was. He went into the saloon and ended up actually learning useful information while I spent more than an hour basically chasing after pigs."

"Chasing after pigs, and you didn't shoot the man. Wow, I guess it really must be love," Lanie quipped.

Kate grinned. "Oh well, the hog-tying class did end up being useful in the end."

"Useful? How?"

"Hog-tying gave me time to practice working with ropes so I could lasso Castle."

Lanie choked on her beer. "You lassoed Castle? Oh, I would so have paid good money to see that!"

Kate gave a little smirk. "Yeah, it was kind of fun."

"Why were you lassoing Castle, anyway?"

"Do I need a reason?" Kate joked. "He was all set to leave after the case was closed, saying goodbye and packing up, so I lassoed him so he couldn't leave."

Lanie snorted. "As if that man would ever leave you." And then realized what she'd said, what her words could be taken to refer to, when Kate's smile faltered for a moment before she managed another smile, visibly pushing away any thoughts of Castle's disappearance, the remembered heartbreak of her own past doubts.

"Anyway, I used the lasso to pull him in closer so I could explain about Ryan and Espo giving us some of their vacation days to use as a real honeymoon."

"And then you two disappeared into your bedroom and didn't come out again for the entire four days," Lanie interjected.

Kate choked on a sip of beer. "Lanie!"

Lanie smirked. "Don't try to deny it, Kate. I've seen the way you two look at each other and touch each other and you've told me yourself that the sex is great."

By now Kate was blushing hotly and looking around to make sure no one was in earshot. "Lanie!" she hissed.

Lanie couldn't hold back her laughter anymore. "Oh, honestly, girl, it was your honeymoon! When else can you freely admit to having spent whole days doing nothing but rolling around in bed and not have anyone think anything of it?"

"We did not spend all those four days rolling around in bed!" Kate exclaimed, keeping her voice low. "We did leave our room during those days."

Lanie raised her eyebrows. "If you say so, Kate."

Kate narrowed her eyes at Lanie. "Well, if that's all you think we did, then I guess there's nothing more to tell you about the honeymoon."

Lanie grinned and then asked, no longer teasing, "But you really did have fun? You weren't exactly thrilled at the idea of going to a dude ranch in the first place and somehow I can't imagine you enjoying yourself, even if Castle got all excited over it, but we already know he's basically an 8-year-old when it comes to playing dress-up."

Kate smiled. "It wasn't my idea and certainly not somewhere I'd ever have chosen to go for my honeymoon but somehow, it just didn't matter once we got out there and finished the case." She shrugged, a rather sheepish smile curving her lips. "He had a blast and I, well, I kind of like to see him when he gets all excited like that. And it was fun, really. Somehow, we almost always manage to have fun when we're alone together. We just enjoy each other's company." Her gaze turned absent, a little added color entering her cheeks, a rather smug smile playing around her lips at some memory from the honeymoon.

Lanie rolled her eyes a little. "You are sickeningly in love right now, Kate Beckett." She paused. "Oh, wait, should that be Kate _Castle_ now?" she asked teasingly.

Kate laughed. "Yeah, officially, outside of work, it is."

"You agreed to take his name?"

Kate shrugged, looking a little self-conscious but also so happy that Lanie couldn't find it in herself to laugh. "He didn't ask; I volunteered. I never thought I'd really want to change my name but somehow… thinking about it this time, I wanted to. After… everything… I want it to be obvious to everyone that this is real and I don't want to hold back on anything, not even my name. So it'll be Kate Beckett for work but everywhere else, it'll be Kate Castle."

Lanie only smiled a little. Somehow, everything did seem to come back to Castle's disappearance; maybe it would for a long while now. And she supposed that made perfect sense given how much Kate had gone through in those two months and given the fact that Castle's disappearance was still a mostly unsolved mystery. But at least he was back now and they were married—Kate Beckett and Richard Castle were married!—and they were happy.

"I'm glad you're happy, Kate," Lanie finally said, seriously.

Kate's smile softened. "I am, Lanie," she said softly. "I really am. He makes me happy."

And Lanie could only smile. It was blindingly, obviously true—Castle did make Kate happy, happier than Lanie could ever remember her being before. So how could Lanie be other than completely happy for her best friend?

She made a mental note to smack Javi upside the head and tell him to get over not having been invited to the wedding, once and for all. Kate and Castle were happy and that really was the only thing that mattered.

_~The End~_

_A/N 2: My first attempt at writing Lanie. I hope I managed to do her, and her friendship with Kate, justice. _

_Thanks, as always, for reading, and I'd love to know what people think! _


End file.
